Method of subscription control in a mobile communication system

• US 9,173,099 B2
• Filed: 03/30/2012
• Issued: 10/27/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/30/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: HTC Corporation
• Original Assignee: HTC Corporation
• Inventors: Liao, Ching-Yu
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, DINH
• Application Number:
  US13/434,877
• Publication Number:
  US 20130078950A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,306 Days
• Field of Search: 455/403, 455/410, 455/411, 455/420, 455/414.1, 455/433, 455/435.1, 455/450, 370/229, 370/230, 370/310, 370/312, 370/328, 370/329, 370/389
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/086 using security domains
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]

Abstract

A method of subscription control for a first network control node in a mobile communication environment is disclosed. The method comprises receiving a trigger request message for triggering a mobile communication device from a machine-type communication (MTC) server, determining whether the trigger request message is valid according to whether one or more MTC features required by an application indicated in the trigger request message is subscribed or activated by the mobile communication device and is supported by a network control node of the mobile communication system, and accepting the trigger request message and forwarding the trigger request message to the network control node when the trigger request message is determined to be valid.

Claims

1. A method of handling device triggering in a network gateway node in a mobile communication system, comprising:

receiving a trigger request message from a machine-type communication (MTC) server, wherein the trigger request message is to be delivered to a mobile communication device and used for triggering the mobile communication device to start a MTC service;

determining the trigger request message is to be valid when one or more MTC features indicated in the trigger request message are subscribed or activated by the mobile communication device and are supported by a network control node of the mobile communication system, wherein whether the one or more MTC features indicated in the trigger request message are supported by the network control node is determined by checking capability of the network control node for the one or more MTC features; and

when the trigger request message is determined to be valid, accepting the trigger request message and forwarding the trigger request message to the network control node, for forwarding the trigger request message to the mobile communication device, thereby triggering the mobile communication device to start the MTC service; and

rejecting the trigger request message when the trigger request message is determined to be invalid;

wherein when the network gateway node does not have the information about the capability of the network control node for the one or more MTC features, the network gateway node includes the information of the one or more MTC features into the trigger request message.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the network gateway node is a device trigger gateway, a HSS or a HLR, and the network control node is a serving MME or a serving SGSN of the mobile communication device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the network gateway node further sends information of the one or more MTC features to the network control node.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more MTC features comprises one or more essential MTC features, and the trigger request message is valid if the one or more essential MTC features are activated and subscribed, and the trigger request message is invalid if at least one of the one or more essential MTC features is neither activated nor subscribed.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the network gateway node stores information of the one or more MTC features required by an application.